Saxony — Brunswick — Holland
The Winter Queen rubbed wintergreen
Upon her snowy breast.
Alas! said she. And woe is me!
I cannot reach the rest.
Said Carlo Fantom, I’m your man!
I’ll work with might and main.
And when I’ve rubbed from bum to bubb
I’ll rub your bubbs again!
No need to go on. Who does not know the scurrilous ballad made on my sojourn at The Hague ’39 to ’40? I had lived more like a brigand than a soldier after my flight from Eger. But then after Wallenstein’s death the war degenerated to such an extent that throughout Germany most soldiers were behaving far worse than brigands.
I joined up with one of the bands of Croats which infested the Saxon forests, living off the local peasants and any travellers who were foolish enough to travel without heavy escort. They were a rough crew and back in our native land would have been nought but peasants themselves, but I felt a need to hear my own tongue spoken and to be awhile among deceits and treacheries I could understand. To my surprise they recognized my name and indeed I was held as a kind of hero among them, my deeds, military and amatory, redounding to the national credit. The tale of how I had interposed my body between Wallenstein and the ball from Bela’s pistol was well known to them and caused them so much amusement that I suspected they had somehow learned or guessed it was a put-up job. But gradually it emerged that they were amused because their simplicity had brought them to the same conclusion as Wallenstein’s super-subtlety. They thought I was a hard-man. Of course their knowledge derived not from books and commentaries by other learned half wits, but from stories whispered to credulous and dirty ears in their stinking, smoke-filled huts.
At their drunken revels some of the band wanted me to demonstrate my hardness by letting myself be used for musket practice, but I refused, saying that so long had I been away from the forests of Croatia that my supplies of the herb had run out and I feared its effects may have waned.
Later that night while the rest lay in drunken sleep, their leader, a hairy rogue called Josip, took me to his tent and showed me a large box full of dried leaves of what he claimed was this very herb. He offered to share his stock with me saying there was supply here for several years. In face of such generosity from one Croat to another there was nothing I could be but extremely suspicious. Why, I asked him, did he not share his herbs with the others and then make them invincible in battle? To which he answered that shared between thirty and forty, the stock would soon be used up, and discord would break out if they knew he possessed the herb but was not sharing it. Hard-men may still be slain either by use of a silver bullet or by being beaten to death with cudgels, neither of which fates he fancied. But, he went on, he was willing to share with me for only a small part of the great store of booty it was well known I had acquired during my German campaigns.
I retired to my tent much disturbed. As I have said before, a soldier of fortune may be thought to be anything except rich. There was no way of convincing Josip that I owned only my horses, my clothes and weapons, and the few gold pieces in my purse, so I had made vague promises and left him content. But this would not last for long. I had nearly paid the price for not heeding warning signs in the recent past. I was not going to be caught again.
Quickly I put my gear together. The camp was unguarded that night, so plentiful had the supply of alcohol been. When they could not find any to steal, they brewed some filth of their own from the resin of pine trees and drank vast quantities, ignoring the two most frequent side-effects which were blindness and insanity.
Only one man was sober enough to be disturbed by my departure and that was Josip. It seemed safest to take a Turkish farewell so I drew my short horseback sword and began to approach his tent. But after a few steps I hesitated and remembered what he had said to me in our friendly talk. He was a villainous and superstitious old rogue but I was an officer and a gentleman and should behave with the intelligence and panache expected of my rank.
So I put away my sword, picked up a stout billet of wood lying near the fire and went in search of Josip.
Whether his skin would have resisted bullet or sword I could not say, but he had been right when he told me even hard-men could be beaten to death with cudgels.
Pausing only to help myself to what little coin he kept in his tent and, as an afterthought, taking up the box in which he kept his supply of the dried herb, I packed this and my other equipment on Petrarch and Luke, mounted Orfeo, and departed into the forest.
I lived hard for some weeks thereafter for I did not care to hang around for long and I was moving through country devastated by the passage of at least half a dozen armies in the past couple of years. Josip’s herb came in very useful for when all other victuals failed, I discovered that the dried leaves, after a long infusion in boiling water, produced a refreshing and sustaining liquid, not unlike this new oriental herb, tea, which I had once tasted at Wallenstein’s court.
Eventually I took service with first one, then another general, insisting always on a short term contract and refusing to take any oath of allegiance or sign any paper which would commit me beyond the financial agreement. He who never swears can never be forsworn. It was plain to all those who had eyes to see that Germany was a ruined land. It had had twenty years of war. Now it wanted twenty years of peace to make it worth plundering once more.
My last engagement on German soil was at Vlotho on the Weser. Everything had changed for the worse. There was a new Emperor now, a miserable canting fellow who made the memory of Wallenstein and his ambitions seem almost pleasant even to his enemies. I was serving him in a force commanded by Hatzfeld, one of Wallenstein’s old colonels, a pleasant enough sinner but he knew a good deal less about warfare than Orfeo! D’Amblève had flourished as a result of his treachery, he told me. But of Lauder he had no news.
Well, I have never cared to be governed by incompetents, so I was thinking of moving on when news came of a small expeditionary force led by Charles Lewis, the Elector Palatine, son of the old Winter King, who was making an effort to recapture some of his father’s former territories. I say this force was led by Charles Lewis, but in the event it appeared he led from behind and when the imperial force swallowed up the intruders, Charles escaped, leaving his young brother, Rupert, who had been in the van, to be captured. This boy (for he was scarcely eighteen) was a fiery termagant and seemed to think there was something honourable in fighting to the death for he refused to surrender even when all his followers had either fled or laid down their arms. I pulled out my pistol for I had no thought to go near that flailing sword, took aim and fired. His horse sank beneath him, its skull shattered and the lad banged his head on a stone and lay stunned till we had disarmed him and bound his head.
I saw him once more before I moved on. He was in slightly more subdued mood and, having by now discovered his identity and intending myself to visit Holland where his mother stayed, I civilly offered to bear a message. An introduction to a Queen, particularly one who is the King of England’s sister and a widow of renowned beauty, is worth a few civilities even to a boisterous pup. He accepted my offer, gave me missives and before I left he said with more maturity and humour than I gave him credit for, ‘Fantom, I must thank you it seems for saving me from an honourable death. But I shall not forget, you owe me a good horse.’
I bowed and left, smiling. It had indeed been a good horse, and had it not reared as I shot, the prince would now have been lying in his honourable grave and my fine stable would have been increased to four.
At The Hague I was made most welcome by all the young prince’s family except for his elder brother, the new Elector Palatine. He was a pompous, self-centred young shit who obviously felt that the world owed him at least one kingdom. But his mother, Elizabeth, she was a woman for whom kingdoms would be well lost. I saw her for the first time alone, which was well for my head. Having heard that I bore tidings of her captured s
on, she summoned me to her private chamber. As soon as I entered I knew I was lost. Quickly I went down on my knees before her and fixed my eyes on the hem of her skirt.
‘Sir, you have news of my son?’ she said eagerly.
‘Madame,’ I stuttered.
‘Sir, speak and tell me. Is he well?’
‘Madame,’ was all I could say.
‘What does this mean?’ she asked, alarmed. ‘What tidings keep you bowed down? Sir, I pray, rise up and let me know what it is you bring me. Let it be good news and you shall have of me what you will.’
‘Madame,’ I said looking up into that lovely face. ‘Your son is well and happy and sends most loving greetings.’
So saying, I tipped her chair backwards and set to.
It’s at moments like this that true royalty shows itself. She was surprised, one might say taken aback. But she was not a woman to complain about a bargain whose terms she herself had stated.
When I had finished she said, ‘ ’Fore God, sir, I trust you have no messages for me from any other of my children.’
I remained in The Hague for more than a year till the Queen dropped some broad hints that I ought to move on. There’s always a constant buzz of scandalous rumour in such a place, and though after I had run my sword through a couple of noble bellies no one dared spread the filth openly, yet ballads and broadsheets are not so easily repressed. In any case, a mere writer is below the notice of a gentleman.
On the Queen’s recommendation and following my own inclination I decided to cross the sea to England. I had a fancy to see that small but famous country and it would make a change to be somewhere where I was not known save through a royal relation’s personal commendation. I delayed my departure as long as possible for sentimental reasons. Orfeo was happily retired now, a great favourite with the children at court, and it would have been an unkindness to take him on his travels once more. Yet I was reluctant to take my leave of so old a friend. The Queen had presented me with a young mare so that my family remained at three, the minimum number necessary for a true riding man. Athene, I called her, for she had a wisdom and grace beyond her years. Compared with my other young horse, Luke, whose eagerness to please and wild enthusiasm in action would always leave him some way short of being perfectly reliable, Athene from the start seemed to listen to what I said to her and act on it in a shorter time than any other beast I had ever schooled. I was basically a follower of Fiaschi and the School of Naples but I had studied later German techniques (Lohneysen in particular) and added some methods of my own. An Englishman called Cavendish seemed to be a man who knew something of the horse’s mind and this was another reason for visiting that country. But still I delayed and Orfeo grew older and Athene more perfect day by day.
But in the end, I had to make a move. Orfeo had been guaranteed a comfortable and honoured retirement till summoned to his last charge. I said goodbye to him as a soldier must, with complete finality and no promises of return. He knew what I was doing and ran round his paddock at the high trot as though to show me he was still fit for anything. But he knew as well as I did that it was past, and I gave him a handful of Rhenish sugar and so took my leave. Next to the Queen, to whom I also said goodbye as a soldier must. She thanked me again for my kindness to her younger son, though in a sense it was Prince Rupert who was driving me away. There had been strong rumours that soon he was to be released, when he would return to the Hague. His elder brother was a cold fish, too concerned with his own affairs to be much bothered by what his mother got up to. But Rupert was another beast altogether. From reports that reached us from time to time, it seemed that his long imprisonment had done little to dampen his fieriness and I had no desire to test his reaction if, as would surely happen, my enemies set out to besmirch my name. I have always made it my rule to avoid if possible killing persons of consequence. The sensitivity of some families to such natural accidents is more than a reasonable man would believe possible. Forgive and forget has always been my motto.
This fellow D’Amblève, for instance, wouldn’t it seem reasonable that by now, fifteen years after that unfortunate business at Lutter, he would have settled down with some nice horsey Belgian girl to breed another generation of good-looking, god-fearing shits? Or, better still, have got his head blown off on some obscure battlefield? I certainly thought so. There had been one or two attempts on my life since the Swedish business, but I could not attribute them directly to the beautiful boy and for two or three years now I had given him scarcely any conscious thought; but the human mind is like an Aeolian harp – when the wind blows, it plays music we had forgotten we knew. What memories are brought back by what trifles! A gleam of light on the water, the smell of new baked pastry, the tinkling of a fountain. The jingling of spurs. I was in the stable when I heard them, saddling and loading my animals prior to departure. A stable yard is no unusual place to hear spurs, but at this sound the hair bristled on my neck. There was only a single tinkle, but the silence that followed was even more significant. A casual horseman would have no cause to become so silent. Quickly I finished tightening Petrarch’s girth and took out of its saddle-rest a new weapon I had acquired after watching the Dutch wild-fowlers on their stinking marshes. It was a form of their donderbus, having a shoulder stock, but with a barrel no longer than a pistol’s. Loaded with very fine shot which was thrown wide by the short barrel, it was ideal for slaughtering birds but except at very close quarters unlikely to be fatal to man. On the other hand as long as you knew vaguely where your target lay, it was hard to miss.
My preparations were finished. I peered through a crack in the door into the yard. It was very dark. I have grown into the habit when the choice is mine of making my departures at night. The ways are clearer and there are fewer eyes to mark your going. Now however I could have wished for the blaze of noon. But the mind very often is light enough and only one part of the yard offered any protection for an ambush if I discounted the stalls themselves. I felt I could. It would take a brave or stupid man to put himself beside a strange horse when his intent was to blaze away with a brace of pistols, and D’Amblève’s assassins would be neither brave nor stupid, just professional. So they had to be in the blacksmith’s shop which stood, open-fronted, to the right of the gate. His fire was out and from my viewpoint the shop was nothing but a blacker hole in the wall of blackness. But that’s where they were, I would stake my life on it. In fact, I was staking my life on it.
Whistling a casual tune (I realized it was ‘The Winter Queen’ after a moment, but did not change) I blew out the lantern, opened the stable door and led my horses out, Petrarch first with the donderbus resting across his saddle, the other two following nose-to-tail as I had trained them. I had thought of making a straightforward dash for it but while I doubted if their marksmanship would be good enough to knock me off a fast moving horse, the animals themselves were much more vulnerable, especially if their armament in any way resembled mine. Also in their situation the first thing I would have done was stretch a couple of thin cords across the gateway, one at knee-height (the horses’) and one at neck-height (mine).
Carefully keeping Petrarch to my right I closed my eyes for a few paces so that when I opened them again the darkness had turned into an arrangement of greys. I could see no impediment to my passage through the gate and as yet there had been no sign of movement in the blacksmith’s shop. Perhaps I had been wrong, but I had to carry on as I had planned. If they were there, they would prefer a clear shot at me, but they weren’t about to let a horse’s body save me from attack. Another couple of yards towards the gate and the hail of bullets would surely come.
‘Whoa, boy,’ I said in a loud voice to Petrarch. ‘Time to ride.’
He halted. I put my foot in the stirrup, I sensed movement in the shop as they craned forward in anticipation of my body rising into plain view above the saddle; I levelled my donderbus and pulled the trigger.
The flash and explosion would have done justice to a battery of cannon. Petrarch st
ood still as a rock, but Luke forgot his lessons and reared up with a piercing neigh which almost drowned the screams coming from the shop. There was no time to reprimand him.
‘On!’ I yelled into Petrarch’s ear, and still with only one foot in the stirrup, I was whirled out through the gate and along the cobbled street. Luke, as though eager to make up for his lapse, ran so close behind that I came near to kicking him as I finally flung my leg over and attained the saddle. And bringing up the rear with the unconcern of a riding school horse came Athene.
My flight had been instinctive, but now I dropped the reins onto Petrarch’s neck and let him decelerate to a sedate walk. There was little chance of pursuit. In the flash from my shot I had seen and recognized the inmates of the blacksmith’s shop. One had been the blacksmith himself, a blackbearded bull of a man. His leather breeches had been round his knees and he was applying himself enthusiastically to a young woman propped up against his anvil. She looked very like the stable-master’s wife, but I might have been mistaken. Certainly she was totally unlike the blacksmith’s wife.
I laughed to myself as I approached the harbour. So it had not been D’Amblève. But better safe than sorry, and lechery must expect its reward. God had given the majority of men free will. Only a few of us had he predestined to suffer.
The thought saddened me for a while but I soon recovered when the shipmaster welcomed me aboard with assurances of favourable winds and a smooth passage. I was on my way to England, land of parliamentary democracy, which meant that surely any man of wit and spirit could make a fortune there. I was tired of wars and tyrants; I was growing too old for the discomforts of campaigning and the intrigues of palaces alike. I wanted a patch of land, a few neighbours to cheat, good horses to ride and a string of ready dames to keep me on the strait and narrow whenever those wild trumpets sounded. England had finished its civil wars a hundred years ago. Now even the wild Scots had no quarrel with a Stuart on the throne. There I would surely find comfort and peace and a place to rest my head.
Captain Fantom Page 9